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Comment by larrik | Hacker News Reader

> The programs for coca eradication each year cost four trillion pesos ($1 billion). Buying the entire coca harvest each year would cost 2.6 trillion pesos ($680 million). It costs less to buy the harvest than to destroy it.

Yeah, I don't know how long that'll stay true when you have a guaranteed buyer for a product...

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It tends to backfire so well there's a name for it[0]. And the current drug economy isn't just going to disappear just because someone else wants to pay for it.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect

I am about zero percent surprised that this is named after something that happened in India. Our entire country is built with layers upon layers of incorrect economical/political stimuli and their unintended consequences.

Example: Some measures taken in the 60s and 70s to increase grain production caused groundwater levels in some states to deplete alarmingly a few decades later. To protect the groundwater levels, a law was passed in 2009 that now, along with the original measures, causes the pollution level of the national capital shoot through the roof (pm 2.5 > 500) every winter.

A lot of these, and the Cobra effect, are really consequences of Goodheart's Law[0]:

> When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.

These should make people think carefully about the metrics and targets used, but that seldom seems to happen.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law

Could they not just pay them whatever profit they would normally get to not produce anything?

That does nothing for demand so the price would to through the roof. All the people you're not paying to not grow will step in to fill that demand.

This works if there is no collusion between politicians, the law enforcement, cartels and criminal elements.

It'll always stay true, because they're buying it to sell it. And just like the producers will have a guaranteed buyer, so will the government.

That's assuming the current $1B does nothing to disincentiveize production which can't be true.

Well the article does mention that they'll be paying market price for the coca. If the price goes up, they pay more and pass it on down the line. The government will literally be manufacturing cocaine, and even excluding recreational use there is still a high demand for it that isn't currently being met.

They'll be printing money.

Yea I'm not sure I understand how people are coming to the conclusion that Colombia will find a way to make selling cocaine into an unprofitable endeavor

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